


a conversation

by glitter_demon



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anxiety, Gen, Short story!, sometimes you just gotta shank that anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27477910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitter_demon/pseuds/glitter_demon
Summary: "Evelyn prefers the dark.It’s not anything important, really— just a liking for the serene embrace of a quiet night. Things are bright too often, she often thinks, in this overwhelming world of fluorescent office lights and LCD screens. Intensity is not something she has ever been good at dealing with, so when the opportunity to just exist in a low-lit space presents itself, she takes it.Which is exactly why she’s biking down the street at two in the morning."an exploration of anxiety and identity with a big ol' dose of paranormal.
Kudos: 1





	a conversation

Evelyn prefers the dark.

It’s not anything important, really— just a liking for the serene embrace of a quiet night. Things are bright too often, she often thinks, in this overwhelming world of fluorescent office lights and LCD screens. Intensity is not something she has ever been good at dealing with, so when the opportunity to just exist in a low-lit space presents itself, she takes it.

Which is exactly why she’s biking down the street at two in the morning.

The wind rushes through her lungs as she eases off the pedals down a hill, cold and bracing in the moonless winter night— or day, technically, but the distant flicker of headlights on the top of an overpass being the only thing close to celestial radiance for a long while, it’s close enough. Her hair whispers against the tops of her ears in the breeze, the sound not unlike tussocks of dry grass brushing against each other. She sighs. Her hair looks like dry grass, too, actually, if it was colored violet by a woefully inexperienced hand. 

More thoughts weave their way through her mind generally akin to that one; pointless, but more positive. Grounding thoughts. She’s too tall for this bike now, but it’s still fun. Her eyes are light grey— maybe that’s why she’s so sensitive to light. The road is smooth and easy to ride; must be recently paved.

She’s trying not to think too much about where she’s going or why she’s going there, lest the anxiety seize her heart again. It pumps with blood now, and not pain, and that’s how she intends to keep it for as long as possible. 

Trees lining the road wind just as much as it does, twisting and knotting in an organic symposium of leafless branches. They’re barely visible against the sky, a charcoal-gray to its inky azure. A gentle susurrus of cicadas and frogs drones quietly on, accompanied by the ambient clicking of Evelyn’s bicycle spokes. It’s not any warmer at the bottom of the hill, shielded by vegetation, even bundled in a sweatshirt and jacket. She shivers. She’s not sure if it’s from the cold or the slowly growing trepidation.

She can feel it stirring. Predictable, sure, but unsettling nonetheless. It sparks as she rounds the familiar bend, an entropic, feral sizzle of energy and panic. Good, she tells herself. Good, this is supposed to happen. But even so, her fingers tighten around the handlebars. 

The road grows rougher and rougher until it cracks into glorified gravel, a confluence of pebbles and weeds. She squeezes the brakes as the bike begins to bump across the sharp stones and hops off. The rocks peter off into the woods. 

There’s a moment where she just stands there, frozen. Does she go?  _ Can  _ she go?

But she shakes her head— of course she can. She came all this way to get here, and there’s no way she’s going back without resolving at least a little of whatever this is. She flips down the kickstand of her bike, and with a fortifying breath, she sets off into the thicket.

It’s an odd place, really. Used to be a townhouse development, decades ago, abandoned for no reason other than the fact that there were other, better places to live. Nature had reclaimed it years before Evelyn had ever discovered it, and yet everything there was and is eerily stagnant. No animals rustle in the underbrush. No bugs buzz through the air. The only trees, though tall, are all in various stages of decay, so she supposes it’s rather vibrantly alive, but it's different from the energy of the growing. She moves slowly. Ducking under branches, stepping over the occasional touch-tone telephone, and squinting through the darkness for the clearing that lays beyond. A flashlight would be very useful at this point. She brought her phone for that purpose, actually, but it feels wrong for her to use it now. Like it would summon the thing too soon. 

So she trudges on, her heart pounding in her chest. It’s calm here, but the mere anticipation of it thrums in her blood. There’s no shoving the thoughts down now, with such a material reminder surrounding her. She grits her teeth as another gelid blast of wind whips past her, and begins to try to organize everything scrambling around her head.

Okay. One: it calls itself Consterlevus. A fairly egotistical name, if you ask Evelyn— anything that purposefully puts latin roots in its name just to sound important is annoying on principle. 

Her foot plunges through a soft, rotting log, and her pulse spikes again. It’s fine. It’s fine.

Two: she doesn’t call it a monster. She did, at first, but she learned quickly that ascribing such universally known characteristics made it even more confident, which she learned even faster was very,  _ very  _ bad for her.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket. Not now. Not now.

Three: it’s probably easiest to kill it physically. She can hurt it, and she has, many a time, but it just slinks back to the burning place in her heart where it likes to fester. She needs to defeat it quickly, before it can retreat. A switchblade weighs heavily in her pocket. A last resort, to be sure. She’s not looking for a dangerous confrontation, but when it comes to that—  _ if  _ it comes to that, she corrects, looking for a least a shred of hope— she’s prepared.

At last, she can see the glade. It seems illuminated, somehow, despite the new moon, but when she blinks, it’s dark once more. She jogs towards it, nervous impatience vibrating through her skull like a plucked chord.

It’s exactly as she remembered it. A small field of unkempt grass and weeds, surrounding a pond, dotted with small water lilies. She hasn’t been here in years— three? Four? And yet it’s completely undisturbed. She laughs to herself. Of course. Consterlevus can’t handle anything less than perfection.

She hesitates for a moment, unsure of what to do. It had kind of been a spur-of-the-moment, last straw sort of decision to come here, The thing has a flair for the dramatic, though, so she spreads her arms and calls up to the sky. “Well? You’re always around, where are you now?” 

There’s no response other than another spark of energy in her heart. She rolls her eyes. “I know you’re here. It’s no mystery that you’re the one making me all, y’know,” she says, pointing at her chest, “panicky.”

A resonating grumble fills her mind. The voice seems split in two, speaking the same words in different tones. One, a shrill, tremulous warble, and the other a deep, jarring rasp, like a coyote with bronchitis. She had found it horrifying at first, an unnatural harmony of something utterly alien to this world, but now it was just irritating.

From her chest, a sinuous, winding light spills onto the ground, sinking into the tangle of untended, shin-high weeds. It slithers through them, sending harsh shadows beyond the reach of its blinding corona. It draws the reflections it creates on the water into itself, swelling and shuddering until it coils itself into an identifiable shape. Its body is lithe and quadrupedal, resembling a panther. Its head, long and rounded, bears the visage of a snake, and when it opens its mouth to hiss, it reveals the sickle-like fangs of a lion. But the most disturbing thing about the creature is its eyes— or lack thereof. 

Though the entire being is made of intense, writhing light, upon its forehead is a tight spiral of absolute darkness; the kind of darkness only achieved in the far reaches of space. It is massive, dominating the majority of the clearing. She squints, eyes watering as it draws itself to its full height. When it opens its mouth to speak, viscous, pearlescent saliva drips from its jaws, rippling on the surface of the pond like gasoline in a parking lot puddle. “You think you may simply summon me at your whim, mere mortal? I have knowledge of realms far beyond your own, power you could never fathom, thoughts—”

“Aw, no hello, Connie?” 

It snarls. “My name is Consterlevus, and you will address me as such, you insolent human!”

She crosses her arms, trying to shove away the pounding distress that grips her heart like a vise. Eldritch entities are nothing too bad. She’s familiar with this one, who has been her unwanted companion for years. Ever since she visited this place, it’s been a parasite in her brain, amplifying the existing anxiety in her head. Terrifying, at first, but she’s exhausted after so many failures at banishing it. And she doesn’t think straight when she’s tired. This thing could literally be eating dimensions if it wasn’t trapped on Earth, powers tamped down by the planet’s very nature.

She shakes her head, trying to clear her mind. Focus. “Right. Anyway, you need to pay your rent. It’s, like, really overdue.”

It lowers its neck, bringing its face— if you can call it that— closer to her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your rent. You’ve been living in my brain or heart or something for at  _ least  _ three years, and all you’ve done is severely worsen my anxiety disorder and convince at least one person that I have schizophrenia. I’ve been a  _ very  _ lenient landlord.”

It makes a piercing rasp she supposes could be interpreted as a scoff. “Are you attempting to jest at your predicament, human? Many have borne my curse before, and none have survived.”

She sighs. “Look, dude, it was a really lame metaphor, I get it. I’m just lowkey a little freaked out.”

It puffs out its chest, raising its head towards the sky. “Of course you are. My abilities known no bounds. My presence permeates your very soul. My—”

“Okay, okay! I get it, you’re an unfathomable cosmic entity beyond my most vivid nightmares or whatever. Now, if you’re not gonna stop whatever you’re doing with my brain, I’m gonna have to kick you out myself.”

It cocks its head, claws extending as it flexes its paws. “Was that a threat?”

She exhales loudly, exasperated. “Duh! I came all the way to the place where I had the absolute  _ pleasure  _ of making your acquaintance with a knife and an ultimatum. I’ve been way too passive all this time, and I can’t stand it a second longer. So what’ll it be?”

Consterlevus bears its teeth. “You are passive. You never tell anyone your opinion, do you? You let it fester in your mind, and then you tear yourself apart for being such a coward. Sure, they all think you are nice, but you never express any real emotion.” It swells, its neck curving down and around her neck, searing her skin. “But it is all worth it, is it not? Being so worried about what other people think. It matters, it really does, in this world. You may hate yourself for it, but you’ll succeed.”

“No!” The cold air condenses her breath into a warm mist, billowing from her mouth like the smoke of a dragon. “That’s not true. I can be nice to people without sacrificing my own needs! The fact that you convinced me otherwise is  _ your  _ fault, not mine, and I’m done blaming myself for everything. I feel detached from everyone because I’m not sincere with them! Not everyone will like me, and that’s okay, because it’s more important to be myself!”

Consterlevus sloughs off her shoulders, neck limp as it slithers back towards its body, a wholly unsettling movement. It shrinks in size, now about even in height with Evelyn. “You cannot possibly think that is true,” it hisses. “Everyone preaches acceptance and love, but few uphold it.”

“Well screw all of the people who don’t! I don’t need their approval; I can be happy with the people that are actually decent human beings!”

It growls, slinking closer. “No, no, do not delude yourself with these lies—”

She draws the switchblade, driving it fervently into the center of the spiral upon its forehead. “They are true! They have taken me years to figure out, but they are true. You have infested this planet long enough, Consterlevus. Be gone!”

It shrieks, a piercing sound that sends ripples through the water. It dissipates into shards of light, flickering like embers of cold white fire until it eventually disappears. 

The panic in her heart fades, and she lets out a sob of relief, falling to her knees. It’s over. It’s  _ gone _ .

She hugs herself, smiling through the tears, and as she looks up at the jet-black sky, she knows that now she can truly direct her own independence— truly accept its serenity.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
